Street, and the score on Layte Street were closely guarded with
solid shutters of a green hue.

"God knows what deviltry is going on here," muttered the lad, a coward
at heart. There were fleeting figures of veiled women gliding past
him through the dim entrances, the refluent stream of the Devil's
daughters.

Down the gloomy side street the blue gleam of the pitiless river
showed light against the somber night, the yellow blinking lights
of the tugs flitting about like corpse candles.

In the dark shadows of the involved angular corners, thug and ghoul
lurked until midnight should bring them their prey, the careless
roysterer, or the belated prosperous citizen. Out on Layte Street
the flashy throng was still pouring toward the Fulton Ferry.

"I wonder if I dare," mused the lad, as he walked around the corner
and paused before No. 192 Layte Street. The sober splendor of the
richly decorated old five-story brownstone told of the vanished
glories of the ante-bellum days.

A stately mansion in whose halls there had been royal cheer in the
departed days when Brooklyn had its proud burghers and New York its
simple citizens of worth. But the pressure of commerce, the havoc
of the bridge construction, the onrush of warehouse, shop, and the
pressure of the street railway octopus had left the sedate mansion
a relic of better days in an incongruous medley of little shops,
doubtful lodging-houses, vile man-traps, and clustering saloons.